· THE 'CHINA “MAIL,.
Exactly what it's like-taking a film test for Zanuck
in
CINEMA SCOPE
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by JEAN DAWNAY
READERS who first met Jean Dawnay through her book "MODEL GIRL" - know her to be a person of frank- ness, honesty and no "line-shooting." Since publication of "MODEL GIRL", millions have seen her on "What's My Line?" Now comes
A Film Test For Jean Dawnay. This is her personal account of an experience' about which thousands of people must have wondered: "I wonder what it's like
THE GIRL (JEAN DAWNAY).......THE GAMERA...AND THE MAN (ZANUCK)
T
HE thing that start-
I
After ad left my euse Way Inken downstairs to Mr ed it all was a meet-Dave Aylott, the make-up man, ing 1 had with film It was ruther like going to director Gregory The dentist's surgery. There was huge chair with a head-real, and lots of instruments, brushes, Tweezers, pots, und penctis lak out-all scrupulously clean and tody, and Mr Aylott wearing suge white jacket,
Ratoff.
Apparently Mr Itatoff liked what he saw because he passed my name on Darryl Zanuck and
gested test.
Three weeks
Mr Zanuck came to London
to
finishi
ago when
filming Alec
Waugh's novel, “Island in secretary me 10 Claridge's
the Sun." his called Hotel.
I went expecting to find a large, baki, cigar-smoking film mogul who would fire questions at me and make me wish I had not come Instead, I found a small, wavy-haired, good-looking man who looked more lik: a retired English colonel.
It was arranged i should do a test in about two weeks' fire.
san
I asked what I should wear, and Mr Zanuck
something completely side like a jumper and skirt
4
SIMPLE
No far, no Kont. Everything seemed very simple. A week later somebody rang me from the studio and stud I would be doing the test The following
Friday.
#t
sciotas of the sudden dead silence all round.
It went fairly smoothly, and when I got to the book Îlt the director suki "Cut," Just like they always do in the films I've seen about Alms
SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1957.
THE kind of breakfast you eat is a key to your character. It was
f
,
•
dietician Vivian Sorable, who told me 40. After ten meetings she guessed my normal breakfast.. orange juice and black coffee.' asked a psychiatrist about this. 'Yes,' he said. "People's eating habits are largely governed by their temperamouls. After talking to a patient for 10 minutes I could guess fairly accurately how he likes to start the day.' Try it for "yourself. Pick out your normal \breakfast from the examples below, then see If the character reading
matches up with your own.
Your breakfast gives
you
OOD
away
coffer *100 soupuj in the giving valub for money, Otton mornings," and prefera fa drives himself too far and and "an ENORMOUS plate suffers accordingly. A loyal of cereal."
friend and married partner.
A rebel BARE MINIMUM....trult or
Juleen, with ten or coffee, The rebel, who acts against ordered domestielly and routine jobs, Lots of energy here for thing they like to do,, VELY litt they are not Interested: Stimulating companioną, bul
married life.
By EILEEN ASCROFT don't take castly to hundr
HEART Y MEALERS... bacon and eggs, sausages kippers, marmalade, Example: Conductor Str Malcolm toust and butter, tea coffee.
or.
B
The cautious
kes or
The energetic extrovert, who likes to get things done. Does not worry un- duly or suffer with nerves. Usually very healthy and a sound sleeper. A good de- bater, but quick to forgive an inquiry.
Sargent kes "a fairly large breakfast before rehearsals." Eats in bed while he answera his letters. Varies the main
dish each day.
Cautious
2
cereal CEREAL EATERS ....
with milk and sugar, ten or coffee
ruses
late
оть
Example: Ballerina Beryl Grey
breakfasts
whole-meal foast and tea, sometime, with the addition of fruit,
Artistic
CONTINENTAL STYLE. . . . . . rolis and coffee, butter and marmalade or honey.
The artistic type, moro Interested in things creative thani Example: Actress Elizabeth Scát- material. Usually generous character, who
and breakfasts and warm-hearted, but not lo consider A
around 10 or 11 a.m. Taken tea good at budgeling or problem
saving or coffee "according to
my Likes the gay things of If like carefully before making up his
mood,"
Ukes a tin of fruit good food, music and dan . mind. Pridos himself on krep-
with cream. "Usually prunes, ing it and in good trim. Usually
but occasionally I lash out and kind and patient, with nice
have mandarin. oranges in→ sense uf humour. Fond of
stead," children and animals.
Example: Film star Don d
Sinden ALWAYS has break-
jast "even if it makes me late for the studios,"
Ands
Conscientious
TEA AND TOASTERS...tea, toast, butter and marmalade, The is the self-sacrificer, the conscientious person who prides himself on doing a good job and
Example: French actor J.- Louis Barrault--now appear- ing in London-cats a scanty Continental breakfast of cofes and rotis. "That is when an in London, In France ! have biscottes (a стова between a biscuit and a bun) instead of rolle.”
(COPYRIGHT)
DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU'RE GOING?
T
London.
At 31 the way ahead has
HIRTY-ONE is a become clear through the good age. People exciting mirages of uncer still call you "Young tainty. Now I know that man." You feel you my own particular fragment Then a stort halt, and then can snap your fingers under of destiny will remain where they started shooting the
anybody's nose. Your face work here in London. In Interview. Again that owful
has acquired those wrinkles Fiect Street. quiet, and my voice sounded very strange breaking the silence. is that girls put down to ex- went low and flet and I was perience. horribly conscious I was making
thing. a mess of the whole FTER cleaning my face with
was asked 10 look upul a cleansing milk he smoothed picture on the wall to my left,
a stick make-up with a
then
at some ornament on the moisture in glycerine wall to my right, then to turn penge {thal wus a new one un me, back And smile. couldn't I've always used water), then manage to smile, it just would
*}]}
LASHES
rushed some dark-brown paint not come. over the bumps on my 11090 making I look alimmer straighter.
I
and Then came "Cut," and it was
All
once
Suddenly OVET.
everyone started talking at
and Then we came to the eyes, what a relief it war. And, on, and the Atting of falas lashes. how I wanted to do it all over
Tone for lunch And theo
soon after a tall, handsome man came and told me it was time for the test the turned out to be Michael Birkett. dievetor).
again and make a better job
a l.
Now all I have to do is wait for the result, a Ussistant
We stopped on the way to have my face repowdered and stick touched up-suddenly my hair which I had been Addling with for ages seemed all wrong and wanted tis change it completely, but I was too late now.
I was being led like a lumb along corridors and out into the foggy afterNICON
across to the
"Island in the Sun" set, on which they had Just that moment finished shooting. 60 there were hundreds of tech- nicians standing Idly around.
So I began to go to Fed early and get rid of the bags under my eyes! but on the Tuesday I was very conscious of all they telephoned
la say eyes upon me as I climbed some
agake
the test had been put forward lemporary stairs
built to en 10 Wednesday.
upstal set that they had con- structed in the studio.
1 was in a panle. When could
I get my hair done? They said it could be done at the studio but I wanted to go to my own hairdresser,
wear?
What was I going to I'd sent the skirt and sweater I'd decided on to the cleaner, and they wouldr: be back until Thursday events Well, I'd just something clac, so I rushed of
Was
a very realistic-looking. elegant drawing-room leading to a bedroom and bathroom. The
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(COPYRIGHT)
But the day-dreams have faded. At heart, every man is smething of a Walter Mitty.
Once, I dreamed of be- coming the youngest cap- tain in the Navy or the most popular portrait painter in London.
Uncertainty
UNTIL I was 30 1 could
see myself clearing vir
or gin land in the Yukon sailing a trading schooner "through the South Seas.
Where the men
I am not sorry, This lough, generous. acute, warm-hearled street has been my university. Here 1 have people.
learned
about
From here I have set out to the ends of the earth. To Fleet:: 'Street I have always been glad lo return.
EXCLUSIVELY from people under 40
this
New Year invitation to answer in detail: do you know where you're going? Those invited: people of ambition-some well-known writers, The some from different spheres, entirely. invitation is accepted first by a writer whose recent series in the China Mail, "The Sky People," commanded widespread praise
by TOM POCOCK
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cynical. The hard, wise-crack- They say that Fleet Street is ing reporter with his hat on the
Buk it Is countless billion yours of hot and no special that rules which back of his head. The editor can and cynicism,
surface. The gas swirling through space, and they believe apply to others do with the cigar and the green usually on the
after the
in not apply to them, millions of years reporter who is cynical to the uye-shade.
which this
hus planct
cry- But if they recognised the But it is not really like that. core is a bad reporter.
What is cynicism? Just the stallised and cooled and given rules they would not have lost Certainly Fleet Street is tough~~~~
actence of birth to Certainly it can bright, paper-thin it has to be.
sluggish, unthinking their moral sense, ► be ruthless -
life, man has arrived in a com- money on unsure mind. 1 making business must be,
parative moment of time. Man There
with his imagination and vision, bod Journalisis famous
his conscience and his sense of and bad newspapers, Just as there are good. And here you
destiny.
arc
overy
are confirmed bachelors, nõ
wonder thousands of the girls are emigrating
A NATION IS LOSING
THE WILL TO MARRY
By RICHARD POLLOCK
RISHMEN
are born "They Arc Just afraid of doubt that the great majority
the responst- of Irishmen suffer from it, bachelors. And they'll marlage and of
bilities that with it," she
go do anything to avoid
This was
confirmed to mo added.
by Dubilier Mrs Biddle being "hooked." That is the
The average man's attitude Brewster, who runs the only_sp
I know two cynics. One' a
arilst. The other fashion model,
HE SAYS: "Only, one thing 'can carry you through life and
that in your own
guts courage,
und
I belleve in nothing but my own courage.”
SHE SAYS: "I only believe In what I can see,"
Disaster
PITY them. I hope that my own way ahead is not theira. For him, there may be wait-, Ing only the struggle of his un- supported courage alone against disaster,
For her there is
a brief, hollow as her butterfly life as candy-striped hatbox,
These two people believe only what 0150 in themselves. In can they believer
J
no-
But, you can believe, it is all an accident signifying thing.
2
believe that Or you can
there is a purpose in the
development
That we
of
civilisation.
are part of a great pattern that we cannot under- stand and is beyond the scope of our minds.
...
They would know when they had done wrong and been faced with the difficult but stimulat- Ing challenge of the conscience. They would be happler, stronger men. They might fail the rules but it to keep to would have been worth trying.
The Rules
BELIEVE
that our troubics
today stem directly from the
That we are working towards fact that men, while paying lip service to moral laws, ignore some goal beyond the horizon. That there is a greater thinking them or refuse to apply them
to themselves. power than our own.
This I bellove,
Foundation
: are lamps which were on ere far stronger than anything simple explanation I have was summed up by an Irishman proved marriage bureau in Eire deeply believe in the promise your lite and you have the CS-
hard
Experiencod ever modelling or TV.
in
QUESTIONS have to fix UD
to that well-known chain store, bought
couple of new sweaters,
and decided I'd wear the bottom
there is no problem. They
of their religion.
I believe that capitallım, unless it constantly changes with the ildos of civilisation, in arely doomed.
believe that malignant Com mundam sprung up only because
For the devoutly religious/ ONCE you can believe this you Christian laws were treated as
have a
foundation for 60 many sentimental Christmas card mottoes, sential basis for religious
This is simple sluft. But that thought. Upon this foundation is what we need. We have got. But for those, who cannot the structure of your fe can so enmeshed in trivial:mazes of share the comfort of secular bo bulit,
our own making. We need to .conviction, those by .the conflicting It must be built according to study carefully the basis of our
Where
be boliefs. On that we can build," can they those lawn.
We need to accept a set of rules, They will give the guidance. The best set of rulez con bo found in the New Testament, Guidance in practical, everyday Simple rules. Difficult to keep, affairs.. But the best there are,
what
been given for the alarming of 32, tall and handsome. This Soine of the Irish bachelors fall in Iceland's marriage for
man holds an all-Ireland medal on her list have been waiting
Galle football, rate-now the lowest in Count Cavan he is a hero,
and in for as long as three years,
"I try to match them, time. religious Europe.
after time, with what I consider puzzled At the age of 30, only
# sultable partner, but they claims of churchmen, "Get married? two ort of five Irishmen
Sure, I'd love keep coming back with some baffled by the immense facts of found? NOTHER Assistant directpqhave settled down with a need my car.
But how could I afford it? excuse or other." to.
Infinity and eternity called Jerry O'Hara told the
I'm a member wife.
I heard of another important Is there for them? of two golf clubs, and I have factor, too, The average trish half of a four-year-old Dior not to worry and to remember drose as a skirt,
that as it was a test one could The result is that Irish to go out a lot and be sociable girl saves her money, and has
with the boys. On Wednesday I woke up feel- always start over again if any girls are being forced to go
a dowry of about £300 or so- ing sick at the thought of the thing went wrong.
abroad to acek husbands, but if I got
"I know plenty of nice girls, whereas the
average Irishman so I Alled myself up with He gave me 0 typewritten
married-well, I ne
has nothing in the bank, what those new calming pills.
sheet with a few questions they Twenty thousand leave the would
have to give up a lot, with the money, he spends on AL 11.30 large car arrived were going to ask me: What is country every year, and wouldn't I now?”
horse racing, dog racing, and to take me,,to the studio. your name? Is this your first within six months many of I asked the chauffeur to stop screen test? Tell me something them have found a prospec-
This man's attitude is typical drink! of the young. Irishman who is at a sweet shop for me to buy about yourr
No wonder career as a model, some peppermints, as I'd eaten olc.
tive husband,
test,
so
#1
etc.
Karlle for lunch the day before I was shown what I had to I was in Ireland shortly (before they'd sprung it on me do walk through the main door, after the latest statistics about the changed schedule), so of the drawing-room, look were issued, and I recall the just in case I was expected to do around the room, then to the
torrid love sceno or some telephone and dial. Afterwords public lament of the Bishop thing I was well prepared with I was cross to the mirror and of Cork: The will to peppermints.
look of myself.
then sit down marry in the land is almost and begin to look at is book, after which they would out gone." then come in close for the Interview.
MASON
I talked to dozens of young peoplo-men ), arid ** womenin the snall towns
It all sounded very simple, Munster and in Leinster, in
como and lako me to my with dressing room.
Tthe studio the driver took and would have A me into a large building and antcob of the pily was at begin and villages.
bein if the Dublin and fathe telephono for somebody to ning to
wear off, leaving mo And the viewpoint of the stin-with-fright tooling average young girl in Fire was W through it once or Wexford giraj of 24. j
my best crystallimal to me
by a was, tickled pink to see my twice then they said "All right, name in large lettere on. Sir, we'll shoot, the next one, aze
future for
inyself door admittedly only on extde 201 was sent to my position out 208 woman, ja hare," she zaki. board, whereas
next of sight behind the drawing "Irishmen will play every trick dressing-room had James Mason room entrance; Somebody: oked they know to baulks that larua painted, on the actual dobe, and our "Quic" then "74 1a,” and where a 'marriage in concerned. Zhey all soeth; tied to finir mothers
the
on the other side of me I read a mi the director salary fuight,
determined not to get "hooked."
so many girls
(COPYRIGHT) ·
It is both a selfish and a emigrate from Southern Ireland! scored attitude, and, there is no
MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN
WELL, LAPY THIS) SORRY THIS MAN CLAIMS THAT-UH-
The Choice
I belleve I know the right This sounds smug, I know. way ahead. If sow, too, that it The cynic will say: "Why havo
UT away the quarrelling awa rules if you are going to break is the difsouls way, and that 2,
the quibbling, and get down. them?"
to essentials. You can believe
one of two things. Only two. I know two successful writers
may not be up to 1. But I he- They are lieve it is the only way,
(COPYRIGHT)
1 You can believe that man who believe this,
and his civilisation is a both young and they like chemical accident. That, after think that they are so sensitive
THERE'S NOT MUCH TIME-IVE GOT TO CONVINCE YOU HEY
I SEE SOMETHING L
By Lee Falk and Phil Davis
HEY DON'T PULL THAT EMERGENC
CORP
THE TRAIN JOLTS TO A SUPPEN STOP WHAT VIP MANDRAKE SEET
There's More Than Magic FRYS
STALIBER GINGER
COVERED IN A
FRY'S CHOCOLATE